Evil Woman
by Electric Light Orchestra
- 123
- BPM
- A minor
- Key
- 8A
- Camelot
- 70
- Danceability
- 46
- Acousticness
Electric Light Orchestra had nearly finished Face the Music, their fifth album, in 1975 when Jeff Lynne listened back and decided there was no good single on it. He sent the band out to a game of football and made up "Evil Woman" on the spot, writing it in a matter of minutes. The first three chords came right to him, and he later called it the quickest thing he had ever done.
Lynne kept it slick and cool, closer to an R&B song than the band's usual sound. It carried big piano solos and a string arrangement. He thought of it as a posh touch for him. The structure was a repetitive chord sequence that turned into a chorus, and the song was inspired by a certain woman he refused to name.
Released as a single in late 1975, it became the band's first worldwide hit and reached the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in early 1976. It came out again in 1978 on The ELO EP. The line about a hole in the head where the rain comes in was a tribute to the Beatles song "Fixing a Hole".
Evil Woman runs at 123 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.95 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 488 ms. It is in A minor, Camelot 8A, which shares its notes with C major and mixes cleanly with D minor and E minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.